Assessing the impact of climate change on the habitat distribution of the giant panda in the Qinling Mountains of China

Climate change threatens global ecosystems and the maintenance of biodiversity via its impacts on the survival of individual species and the preservation of their ecological functions. The effects of climate change are particularly evident in the mountainous areas of southwestern China that support the last remaining populations of giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca). However, very few studies to date have assessed the likely impact of climate change on the distribution and abundance of giant panda habitat. In this paper, we developed a mechanistic model that uses climatic variables (rather than biotic variables) to (i) examine how variation in landscape scale climate influences the spatial distribution of panda habitat in China's Qinling Mountains, and (ii) evaluate how the distribution and extent of panda habitat will change in the future under forecast climate change scenarios. We found that there was substantial variation in temperature throughout the study area that correlated with variation in altitude. Under climate change scenarios, the future climate in this region (during the period 2070-2100) would be far warmer and wetter than the current climate (for the period 1990-2007). Our model results revealed that this predicted climate change could reduce the extent of a suitable habitat for giant pandas by up to 62% (under IPCC SRES A2 scenarios; and 37% under IPCC SRES B2 scenarios). We also showed that as a result of this predicted climate change, the minimum elevation of panda habitat would rise by 500 m. Accordingly, our model showed that on the basis of predicted climate change, a new suitable giant panda habitat would likely become available in areas further north of their current range (at higher latitudes, in the northwest part of the study region). Finally, and most importantly, we showed that the established network of nature reserves within this study region does not adequately protect the current distribution of suitable panda habitat, nor will it protect suitable panda habitat in the future.